Oklahoma governor returns $250,000 in gifts from financier

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Gov. Frank Keating said Friday that he has returned $250,000 in gifts that he and his family received from retired Wall Street financier Jack Dreyfus.

Keating spokesman Dan Mahoney said the cash gifts, which were offered over a 10-year period, were legal but that the Republican governor ''wants to avoid any appearance of impropriety.''

Keating has been criticized politically since disclosure last month of the gifts from Dreyfus, the founder of Dreyfus mutual funds.

Newsweek reported that the gifts may have been a factor in President Bush passing Keating over for attorney general. Bush sent Keating a letter saying this was not the case.

In a letter to Dreyfus, Keating said he had written a check for $250,000 to the Dreyfus Charitable Fund.

''My political opponents have chosen to denigrate my good name and that of my family with accusations of impropriety,'' Keating said in the letter.

''Such perceptions threaten to obscure the real and substantive challenges facing the state of Oklahoma ... When there are such important issues to address to move Oklahoma forward, I cannot abide harmful political diversions.''

Keating has said the money was given to his children and went toward their education expenses. But Democratic Party officials criticized him after financial disclosure forms revealed that money also went to Keating and his wife.

Gordon Melson, executive director of the Oklahoma Democratic Party, said Keating's return of the money was ''a good first step.''

''However, he was asked to do this over a month ago,'' Melson said. ''This doesn't excuse any improper or unethical behavior by not reporting the gift earlier.''

In 1990, when Keating was chief counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dreyfus offered to give each of Keating's three children a cash Christmas gift of $10,000.

Keating has confirmed that the gifts continued after he left HUD, and said the total amount given was $250,000.